Project Plowshare was the name given by the
Atomic Energy Commission to a project that sought “to find practical
industrial and scientific uses for nuclear explosives.”1
The AEC could make the Biblical
leap to beat its “swords (bombs) into plowshares.”2
One idea for Project Plowshare would have used deeply buried nuclear
explosions to form chimneys of broken rock into underground reservoirs for
water in arid regions.

Scientists, during the
1960s and 1970s, developed the new and exciting technology of nuclear
stimulation in the energy field. Nuclear stimulation, a process where
natural gas trapped in tight formations is released, was going to be the
answer to the nation’s energy crisis, at least in the view of project
proponents.

The process in which the
chimneys stimulated the production of natural gas attracted the attention of
El Paso Natural Gas Company. The firm signed a contract with the Atomic Energy
Commission and the Department of the Interior to explore the feasibility of
using nuclear stimulation in natural gas production. The agreement was
signed January 31, 1967.3

Plowshare’s only focus seemed to be nuclear stimulation. The Atomic Energy Commission’s 1972
Annual Report gave a glowing review of research progress. The research had
high-level support. President Richard Nixon, in 1971, “cited this nuclear
stimulation technology as one of four Federal technological efforts undertaken
to alleviate the Nation’s natural gas shortage.”4

Four
nuclear stimulation projects were planned during the Plowshare years, three of
which were detonated. The first stimulation project detonated by the Atomic
Energy Commission was Project Gasbuggy near Farmington, New Mexico, in the northwestern
corner of that state. By the time it was implemented, Project Gasbuggy
was a single 29-kiloton nuclear device detonated December 10, 1967. The test
brought with it little negative publicity. In fact, the project was
“heralded by the New Mexico Governor, the State’s Senators, and members of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.”5

Local
newspaper coverage in New Mexico was generally positive. The day after the
test shot, one newspaper included a photograph of a Native American with an
employee of the El Paso Natural Gas Company. The caption read, “Space Age
First Helps First American.”6
PThe company printed pamphlets describing the project in Spanish and English.
Apparently, they were distributed widely.7

State government officials and most elected politicians in New Mexico embraced
the project. “New Mexico congressmen consistently pressed for progress on Gasbuggy, and some were unhappy with the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) for
what they felt were unwarranted delays in the Gasbuggy timetable.”8
Project Gasbuggy was considered a technical success according to many because
the “shot stimulated gas flow into the well to a degree somewhat greater than
had been possible through conventional techniques, but uncertainty remained as
to how much improvement had occurred.”9
After the first test shot, the project continued to move forward--and with the overwhelming support from both elected
officials and people living in the area.10

The second nuclear stimulation project, Project Rulison, in Colorado faced significant
early opposition. Environmental groups filed
suits opposing the project. In the Project Rulison test, a single nuclear
device of 40 kilotons, was detonated Sept. 10, 1969, near the town of Rifle,
Colorado. The site was beneath 73-year-old Claude Hayward’s 292-acre potato-patch.
Hayward initially declined the offer of $100 a month for the rest of his life
for use the property.. Later “the AEC came back around with a whiskey bottle and
got him good and juiced up and said they would pay him $200 a month for the
rest of his life.”11
This time, Heyward signed.

Unlike Gasbuggy, the Rulison
project brought out protestors both at the scene and in
the court system. The day the project was detonated, four protestors paired
off and, just before detonation, made their presence known by lighting fireworks
inside the secured zone. A helicopter swept two of the protestors out of
the area while the other two remained and experienced the blast’s shock waves.

Another protestor was in
the U. S. Supreme Court when the bomb went off. Tom Lamm, brother of future Colorado
Governor Dick Lamm, appealed to the Supreme Court to stop
the project. He lost. Tom Lamm said he “got kicked all over the court,
but everybody was real nice because they all knew that I was just a dumb kid
from Colorado.” After the ruling was announced, Tom Lamm spent time thanking
clerks, avoiding the press waiting for him outside. When he finally left
the building, “the first thing they said was that the bomb just went off.”12

Meanwhile, local residents
met the Rulison detonation with a “fun afternoon.” In fact, one local
resident “remembers being irritated by the protestors who’d come in from out
of town.”13
The preliminary results “indicated that the experiment had demonstrated the
technical feasibility of nuclear stimulation of gas in the Rulison field.”14

Heyward never got any
money for letting the bomb go off beneath his potato-patch even though he had
signed the contract. In the fine print was language revealing that Heyward “got paid only if the well made money for the energy
companies.”15 The
project spurred interest in 1974 through a citizen’s initiative. Colorado voters amended the
state’s constitution to require that any project to detonate a nuclear bomb in
Colorado “must first pass a statewide vote of the people.”16 Dick Lamm
credited Rulison with helping to “launch the state’s
environmental movement along with his candidacy for governor.”17

The third nuclear
stimulation project was Rio Blanco. The project, detonated May
17, 1973, was located in western Colorado in Rio Blanco County. Rio Blanco
differed from its predecessors because it used three 30-kiloton nuclear
devices stacked vertically and detonated simultaneously. The objective of Rio
Blanco was to determine if detonating the nuclear devices would result in the
three bombs creating one “rubble chimney,” thus producing more natural gas.18
Technically speaking, Project Rio Blanco was a failure because “there was no
communication between the top and the lower chimneys,” defeating the purpose
of the design.19

The dynamics of the Rio
Blanco political situation were dramatically different from Gasbuggy and
Rulison. The energy crisis had hit home in Colorado during the preceding
winter when “Denver public schools were briefly forced to curtail the school
week because of (their) inability to heat school buildings.”20
Unlike Rulison, the strongest voices opposing Project Rio Blanco came not from
environmentalists, but from industry. TOSCO (The Oil Shale Company) took
center stage with the argument that the project would “destroy the opportunity
to exploit overlying oil-shale formations.”21

However in the end, local
residents appeared to be in favor of Rio Blanco. In fact, “a Rio Blanco
county commissioner expressed exasperation that some of Colorado’s elected
representatives seemed to pay less attention to the local area residents who
favored the project than to some ‘so-called experts who live as far away as
Connecticut.’” Project Rio Blanco was detonated because the resistance
was muted—local residents favored the project and elsewhere the story got
“lost amid coverage of Watergate and other stories of the day.”22

Project
Wagon Wheel was to be Wyoming’s nuclear stimulation project, nestled in
Sublette County, Wyoming. However, unlike its predecessors Wagon
Wheel was not detonated.

Sublette County is located
in southwestern Wyoming and in 1970 had a population of 3,755. There were four
towns between ten and twenty miles from the blast site in Sublette County,
Wyoming:

Town
Population

Pinedale 950

Marbleton 220

Big Piney 570

Boulder
75

Wagon Wheel, had it been tested, would have
detonated five nuclear devices sequentially from bottom to top between 9,220
feet and 11,570 feet below the surface of Sublette County. The detonations
would have created an underground rubble chimney approximately 2,800 feet high
and about 1,000 feet in diameter.23
The five nuclear devices would have been 100 kilotons each24
and detonated approximately five minutes apart.25
It was estimated by one geologist, William Barbat, that “the nuclear energy to be
released in the stimulation of Wagon Wheel ... is about 35 times as great as
the energy of the gas which is expected to be produced.”26

After the blast, El Paso
would have waited between four and six months to allow for the decay of “short-lived radioisotopes” before test production of natural gas. Even then,
there would be some release of radiation during the 325-day flaring of the
well. According to the AEC, “the resulting total maximum radiation dose
which would be received by a local resident from the production testing
activity is found to be a small fraction of the natural background radiation.”
The AEC did not anticipate contamination of groundwater either.27

Had the test been
successful in stimulating natural gas, it would have been mild compared to
what the AEC planned when El Paso started full field production. There could
have been as many as forty to fifty nuclear detonations a year, some within a
mile of Pinedale, Wyoming.28
Dr. Ken Perry, a University of Wyoming geologist and
rancher, said the area could, “become the earthquake center of the world”
based upon the AEC prediction.29

* * *

In 1954, the El Paso
Natural Gas Company (EPNG) found a gas field between 7,500 and 10,700 feet
below the surface south of Pinedale in Sublette County.30
El Paso drilled six wells and figured there were approximately four trillion
standard cubic feet of natural gas in the field. However, the natural gas was
in low-permeability sandstone formations and the available technology to
fracture the rock did not justify building a pipeline to the field.31
A worker at the original site said, “You’ll have to blow the hell out of the
rock to get the g- d- gas.”32
An oil field contractor, told Owen Frank, in the late 1950’s, “The only way
they’ll get it out is to set off an atomic bomb down there.”33
El Paso proposed the nuclear stimulation concept for the Pinedale unit to the AEC in 1958.34

In 1963 several government
agencies agreed to a feasibility study of nuclear stimulation. In December,
1967, Gasbuggy, the first nuclear stimulation
project, was detonated near Farmington, New Mexico. The results of the
test explosion encouraged El Paso Natural Gas to sign a contract a year later
to study Wagon Wheel.35
El Paso described Wagon Wheel as

...a joint effort between El Paso Natural Gas
Company and the Federal Government of the United States of America to further
develop the use of underground nuclear explosions to stimulate low
permeability natural gas reservoirs. Cooperating on the project are El
Paso Natural Gas Company, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and the
U.S. Department of Interior as specified in Contract No. AT(26-1)-422 between
the United States of America and El Paso Natural Gas Company, dated December 24,
1968.36

There
are conflicting dates as to when the project was started. Some sources
suggest that the project started January 24, 1968, when “a detailed project
definition was begun by El Paso, the AEC, and the Department of the Interior to
evaluate the potential of nuclear stimulation techniques in the Pinedale
area.”37

The same document reveals
that on July 30, 1969, the WASP (Wyoming
Atomic Stimulation Project) project was started. It was “composed of seven
independent oil companies, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of the Interior (and)
began a detailed project definition of using nuclear explosions in the
Pinedale, Wyoming, area.”38

But Wagon Wheel differed from Gasbuggy because “its goals include obtaining cost information as well as
technical information.” Gasbuggy’s objectives were to determine the
engineering, but not to be a profitable investment.39

Initially, the project
gained little publicity in Wyoming. Apparently, the first article about Wagon
Wheel appeared in the Casper Star-Tribune, the only statewide newspaper
in Wyoming, on February 1, 1972.40

The Wagon Wheel test was scheduled for 197341
when it was announced initially.42
As time passed, the date for the test was postponed. On June 14, 1972, an
article in the Casper Star Tribune noted that El Paso had delayed the
test until 1974.43
A day later, a front-page story in the Rock Springs newspaper confirmed the
delay. According to the article, El Paso had announced Wagon Wheel would not
be conducted in 1973, and that 1974 might not be feasible.44

Less than a month later, Dr.
James Schlesinger, then head of the AEC, predicted
the test was at least five years away — in 1977.45
In September, the AEC announced that “the project is still in the design stage
and no execution has been authorized as yet,” and that the test would probably
not occur before fall 1974.46
Confusion continued; the project was planned for spring 1974 in October,47
while in December, it was “slated to take place sometime in 1975.”48

The exact date Wagon Wheel
died is also unclear. President Nixon’s budget for fiscal year 1974 did not
include funding for tests under Plowshare, which included Wagon Wheel.49
By May 22, 1973, Wagon Wheel had “been shelved at least temporarily because of
lack of funding.”50
According to one source, Nixon’s director of the AEC, Dr. Dixy Lee Ray51
“announced that Project Wagon Wheel was dead for the foreseeable future,” but
a search of the references cited failed to turn up supporting evidence.52

The test-well drilled for
Wagon Wheel was never used in a nuclear test but was employed by EPNG to
conduct tests of “Massive
Hydraulic Fracturing” (MHF) during 1974 and 1975. MHF is a method where
water is pumped into a well until the pressure of the water causes the rocks
to fracture. The study used the well originally drilled for Wagon Wheel,53
and concluded the MHF “technique employed [was] not commercially feasible.”54

Public Participation

It’s not really clear when
the news about Wagon Wheel was made known to the public. However, on December
1, 1971, a letter was written to Wyoming Governor Stanley K. Hathaway referring to a November
8, 1971, Associated Press dispatch from Amchitka, Alaska. According to the letter, the
AEC “was planning or conceiving of nuclear blasts in Wyoming.” The
author of the letter, whose identity was not revealed, urged the governor to
“fight against any AEC doings in Wyoming.”55
Hathaway responded December 10:

I am not aware of any planned nuclear test
blasts by the AEC for Wyoming. I am confident that if the AEC plans such
action that it will take the necessary precautions to protect the health and
safety of Wyoming citizens and our environment.56

If Hathaway had not known
about Wagon Wheel when he wrote the letter, he learned about it on February 1,
1972, the date the first article about Wagon Wheel was published in the Casper
Star Tribune.57
Six days later the Casper Star-Tribune published the first editorial on
the project. Titled, “Shaking Up Ecologists,” the paper noted “we can
anticipate at least some murmurs of disapproval from conservationists.”
The editorial defended the project by noting “Similar nuclear stimulations,
like Gasbuggy and Rulison have failed to shake up the Rockies — but there is
always that prospect of shaking up the ecologists.” Ending on an upbeat note,
the paper hoped the “experiment will contribute to relieving the future
shortage of natural gas in this country.”58

Meanwhile, in Pinedale, the Wagon Wheel Information Committee (WWIC) was formed by a group of local
residents, “to impartially gather all pertinent information regarding the
Wagon Wheel Project.”59
As a result of their study, they opposed the nuclear stimulation project.

Before arriving at that
conclusion, the committee members performed extensive work. They consulted
experts in various fields connected with petroleum exploration, geology,
nuclear physics, and game and fish biology. They read and analyzed data
submitted by a wide variety of organizations, including the Atomic Energy Commission, Lawrence-Livermore Laboratory, El
Paso Natural Gas and others.

Information on both sides
of the issue was made available to the people of Sublette County, through
their library system. The committee sponsored public
meetings, in order that the members might have the benefit of informed public
opinion in reaching a conclusion.60

While the Casper Star
Tribune continued its pro-Wagon Wheel stance until May 1972, it was
evident the public, at least in Sublette County, did not agree with the paper.
When, in a later editorial, the Casper Star Tribune stated “Emotional
conservationists, as usual, grabbed the scene at a meeting in Pinedale,”61
the paper received a heated letter from Phyllis Birr,62
a member of the Wagon Wheel Information Committee.

Countering the paper’s
editorial about the March 20 meeting, Birr’s letter contended that the
meeting, “was conducted on an intelligent and organized basis.” Birr added
that the newspaper’s “attitude is one of total ignorance of the situation.”63

It was not Birr’s first
letter to an editor about the proposal. The previous month, she wrote to
High Country News, an environmental newspaper then based in Lander,
Wyoming, commenting on an editorial by Tom Bell, the paper’s editor.64
Bell wrote that the planned atomic devices were “the sort of thing once
dropped on an alien people another world away. Now it is being dropped in our
laps.”65
Birr wrote to Bell telling about the WWIC:

We have formed a committee ... with the
sponsorship of our County Commissioners...we urge all your readers to write to
their elected representatives to protest this rape of our Country. We
feel that nuclear detonation is not the only answer to retrieving this natural
gas.66

Neither the AEC nor El Paso Natural Gas were
represented at the initial meeting of the WWIC where more than 500 people gathered to
learn more about Wagon Wheel. Floyd Bousman and Sally Mackey were co-chairs. It was
mentioned during the meeting the AEC had admitted, “if Pinedale were more
populated, the gas stimulation would not be economically feasible.”67

Shortly after the meeting, a local
insurance agency used Wagon Wheel to their advantage. They placed an ad
with the word “Wagonwheel” in bold print at the top: “THERE, WE’VE CAUGHT YOUR
ATTENTION. Why not drop in to discuss your insurance?”68

The Wyoming Wildlife Federation and
the Green River Valley Cattlemen’s Association called a meeting for April 29,
with AEC and El Paso representatives. Reportedly, the meeting was well
attended (“When the meeting got started...the gymnasium was perhaps a
little more than half full but people continued to come in.”) It went on for
five hours.69
Phillip Randolph, director of the El Paso Nuclear Group, (as well as
several others from the company and AEC), assured residents there was “little
potential danger.”70

Perhaps nothing shook the
public confidence more than the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) issued in
January 1972. The draft EIS contained a photograph of the well site during the
drilling of the well. The document covered the background of Wagon
Wheel, probable environmental impact, “adverse environmental impact which
cannot be avoided,” as well as alternatives and “environmental effects of
contemplated future action.”71
The final EIS covered similar ground and included 91 pages of public comments
and responses by the AEC.

Once the final EIS was
released, few critics considered it complete or adequate.72
U.S. Senator Gale McGee (D-Wyoming) decried the EIS, claiming it, “was
premature, failed to cover the overall impact, and failed to comply with some
criteria laid out for the preparation of such reports.”73

Randolph agreed the EIS was
premature as it “contained language that was alarming to the layman ...the
report was satisfactory to technical persons working in the field.”74
Whether or not Randolph was correct in his assessment of the
EIS, it was followed by an announcement by El Paso that, “independent experts
from Colorado State University are being engaged as
a team of consultants to expand the bio-environmental studies already carried
out.”75
However, the two experts, as well as the earlier EISs’, were blasted in an
article in the Jackson Hole News:

El Paso is only now
being forced to undertake comprehensive studies to indicate the possible
effects of their blast.

That would be fine, if the
studies appeared a bit more objective. Buried in this week’s
announcement we find that Dr. Keith Schiager, a CSU radiation ecologist, is to
be on the investigating team. Sounds impressive until you remember that
Dr. Schiager was one of the few scientists at a meeting held last spring at
Big
Piney who spoke in favor of the Wagon Wheel project. Judging from this
experience, can we expect Dr. Schiager to be objective?

Unfortunately, Dr. Schiager
doesn’t appear to be as much of a liability to the team as Dr. H. G. Fisser,
range management expert from the University of Wyoming. According to the
El Paso release, “Previous studies by Dr. Fisser and others ... have indicated
that the project Wagon Wheel detonations will not have
observable effects upon the ecology and environment of the area.”76

This study was not the only
one to surface after the EIS was released. A report by U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries and
Wildlife biologists said “the location of the site should be re-evaluated with
consideration for the possible ‘adverse effects’ it might have on fish in
nearby streams.”77

In December 1972, the AEC
announced that “information for a scientific decision on Project Wagon Wheel
will not be available at least until late summer of 1974.” AEC said it
needed “continued scientific work in Wyoming ... before [it] could consider
whether to proceed.”78
The actions by EPNG and the AEC did not appear to inspire confidence in the
public.

El Paso and AEC also came
under fire for their attitude toward area bridges and irrigation systems.
Randolph said he “questioned whether it was the company’s social
responsibility to retain an engineering firm for ‘a quarter of a million
dollars’ when only one or two ranchers use the bridge.”79
According to Randolph, four bridges were examined but,

Our big problem is — how do you be responsible?
What is a socially responsible position? Crossing a bridge to that one
man whose living is dependent on crossing a river is damned important.
Whether ownership is by the public or a private individual, we will seek a way
to work with those people affected.80

Technical studies noted in
the EIS estimated the expected damage to be about $65,000, including
significant damage to a highway bridge about 5.5 miles away.81
In 1971, Dames and Moore, “a company nationally
recognized for its competence in the field of applied earth sciences,”
conducted a study “to see if there would be an effect upon selected dams,
reservoirs, canals, streams, buildings and other surface features as a result
of an underground nuclear test.”82
However, the study had overlooked irrigation systems.

Floyd Bousman, local rancher who was
co-chairman of WWIC, lived ten miles away in Boulder, Wyoming. Bousman claimed the
test would “destroy concrete irrigation structures on his ranch.” Randolph
said the motion would be four feet at the well, “but only one-eighth of an
inch at Bousman’s ranch.”83

Bousman, a
commissioner of the Boulder Irrigation District, also objected to
the EIS valuation of the Boulder Dam at $150,000. The dam, built in
1965, cost over $280,000 to construct, with an estimated replacement cost in
1973 of $430,000.84
The original EIS and technical studies by El Paso seemed inadequate, even to
the company, as they saw fit to do additional study. In July 1972, a group was
formed to inspect “all dams within 30 miles of the project location and all
canals, control gates and siphons within 15 miles.”85

Dames and Moore returned
during the summer of 1972. For an unstated reason, perhaps because they had
omitted irrigation systems, their earlier study was not adequate. They were
asked to do a “more detailed study,” taking into account comments from the AEC,
county residents, and various federal and state agencies personnel.86
Bousman wrote to the Star
Tribune:

I am writing in regard to
the recent press release by EPNG in which they list the dams, etc., which they
are now going to study in conjunction with Dames and Moore, for possible
damage from the Wagon Wheel Project.

I wonder how many people
realize that these are all things that EPNG and the AEC, in their environmental
statements said had already been done, when in fact they had not been done.

Is it any wonder there is
such a large credibility gap?87

WWIC continued opposition
to the test throughout the fall. The organization conducted a “straw
poll” during the 1972 general election. Although the vote had “no legal effect
on the future of the planned nuclear detonations,” the results indicated the
strength of the opposition to Wagon Wheel.88
Of the 1,670 people who voted in the general election, 1,230 chose to express
an opinion about Wagon Wheel. “873 said they opposed Wagon Wheel, while 262
said they favored continuation of the project. Ninety-five individuals had no
opinion.”89

WWIC members, concerned
that the straw poll results would be questioned, had the county sheriff’s
department collect the ballots. Two ministers counted them. U. S.
Representative Teno Roncalio (D-Wyoming) said it appeared that El Paso would
“not live up to promises that it wouldn’t cram Wagon Wheel down the throats of
Sublette County residents.”90

Pinedale resident Mildred
Delgado wrote to the Casper newspaper, claiming that if one were to add the
501 people who did not vote, the 95 who were undecided and the 262 who voted
in favor of Wagon Wheel, they would comprise 49.6 percent. Those who voted
against were just 50.4 percent. She pointed out that WWIC’s choice for U. S.
Congress, Teno Roncalio, had lost Sublette County to his Republican
challenger, Bill Kidd, by a vote of 900-761.91

WWIC member Phyllis Birr
responded quickly to the Delgado claim. “Since when do people who do not vote
automatically register as a vote ‘for’ something?” she asked in her letter to
the editor.92

In December, officers of the WWIC
sent a letter to El Paso officials, the AEC and members of the state’s
congressional delegation, requesting a meeting. The groups decided to meet in
the Washington offices of U. S. Senator Clifford P. Hansen (R-Wyoming), in
February, 1973. Birr, Bousman, and other WWIC members arrived in Washington on
February 4. Cong. Roncalio had arranged for them to meet with representatives
of the Environmental Protection Agency the next day, in addition to meeting
with the AEC and El Paso representatives on February 7. Bousman also
appeared on NBC’s "Today”
show to help publicize the opposition to Wagon Wheel.93

Even before the meeting, an
AEC “official promised Wyoming citizens...he will ask the AEC head to consider making Project
Wagon Wheel dependent on a citizen’s referendum.”94
It turned out that Roncalio was a step ahead of the committee,
pressing for change within the AEC.

While the exact date of
Wagon Wheel’s death is murky, the direct cause appears clear. Roncalio, a
staunch opponent of Wagon Wheel, had tried unsuccessfully throughout the
summer to cut funding from the AEC budget for the project. In January, 1973,
the congressman was appointed by House Speaker Carl Albert to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.
“I sought this post to give Wyoming a voice in atomic energy developments,
ranging from the proposed Project Wagon Wheel....,” Roncalio said.95

Less than a week after his
appointment to the committee Roncalio announced that the AEC budget for Plowshare
programs did not “include funds for any test events in fiscal 1974.” On the
Senate side, Hansen pointed out that Nixon’s budget “delayed Wagon Wheel until
late 1977--at the earliest.” He added that even if funds were restored by
Congress for the fiscal year 1974 budget, it was “rather apparent that the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would impound those funds also.”96

Roncalio claimed that the
more study made of Plowshare, the sooner it was going to end:

It appears to me that the
more we study the entire Plowshare Program, the more it is doomed....I say
that is because previous attempts at this type method have not been
commercial.97

In mid-May, 1973, Roncalio
requested elimination of the $3.8 million for nuclear stimulation from the AEC
budget.

Despite years of research,
including Projects Gasbuggy and Rulison, this technology has not produced one
cubic foot of salable natural gas...the AEC should terminate this program and
direct its attention to far more pressing needs in reactor programs.98

Wagon Wheel already had
been delayed by cuts in funding. Now, the entire concept of nuclear
stimulation was about to be shelved. WWIC had succeeded in its goal. Wagon
Wheel had been halted.

Even if it had not been
stopped by Roncalio, Bousman believed the project would not have
continued because the public opposition was too great. “The people were
willing to organize a county-wide or even statewide referendum and devote
ourselves all our lives, if need be, to end this thing,” Bousman said.99

The shaft drilled for the testing
was used to test “massive hydraulic fracturing.” Nuclear devices, however,
were never used at the site of Project Wagon Wheel.

Wagon Wheel could be
considered a case study of how people from outside of Wyoming have wanted to
exploit the state for their ends and how local groups, such as the WWIC, can
successfully oppose such actions. El Paso, as early as 1958, asked the AEC for
assistance in extracting natural gas out of low-permeability sandstone
formations near Pinedale, but contracts and publicity were not publicly known
for at least 11 years.

The threat of five nuclear detonations threw fear into a small community,
inciting a group of ranchers and ecologists to join on a quest to stop the
test of nuclear stimulation. Wagon Wheel was halted. The sword was not be a
plowshare. It remained an unwanted implement of war.

1
Atomic Energy Commission, 1964 Financial Report, 17.

2
Isaiah 2:4

3 Evidence suggests it may not have
been the first contract for nuclear stimulation. In 1963, El Paso, the AEC and
the Department of the Interior jointly studied the feasibility of nuclear
stimulation. See Frank Kreith and Catherine B. Wrenn, The Nuclear Impact: A
Case Study of the Plowshare Program to Produce Gas by Underground Nuclear
Stimulation in the Rocky Mountains. (Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1976),
13.

4
Atomic Energy Commission, 1972 Financial Report, 36. On June 4, 1971,
Nixon delivered a “Special Message to the Congress on Energy Resources,” that
incorporated the term “nuclear stimulation” while describing efforts to reduce
the current shortage of natural gas. In the message, Nixon states “this
relatively clean form of energy is in even greater demand to help satisfy air
quality standards. Our present supply of natural gas is limited,
however, and we are beginning to face shortages which could intensify as we
move to implement the air quality standards.” Nixon noted that federal
effort to help alleviate the shortage included: “Progress in nuclear
stimulation experiments which seek to produce natural gas from tight geologic
formations which cannot presently be utilized in ways which are economically
and environmentally acceptable.” Richard Nixon, Public Papers of the
Presidents: Richard Nixon 1971, (GPO, 1971), 710.

5
Kreith and Wrenn, 49.

6
Kreith and Wrenn, 55.

7
Kreith and Wrenn, 54.

8
Kreith and Wrenn, 54.

9
Kreith and Wrenn, 68.

10
Today, a plaque marks the point of detonation on the surface: “Project
Gasbuggy Nuclear Explosive Emplacement/Reentry Well (GB-ER) Site of the First
United States Underground Nuclear Experiment for the Stimulation of
Low-Productivity Gas Reservoirs. A 29-Kiloton Nuclear Explosive Was Detonated
at a Depth of 4227 feet Below This Surface Location on December 10,
1967. No excavation, drilling, and/or removal of materials to a true vertical
depth of 1500 feet is permitted within a radius of 100 feet of this surface
location. Nor any similar excavation, drilling, and/or removal of subsurface
materials between the true vertical depth of 1500 feet to 4500 feet is
permitted within a 600-foot radius of T 29 N. R 4 W. New Mexico Principal
Meridian, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, without U. S. Government Permission.
United States Department of Energy November 1978.” Bureau of Atomic
Tourism, “Project Gasbuggy,” (http://www.oz.net/~chrisp/gasbug.htm),
Author accessed site, March 23, 1998.

23
“AEC Supports Nuclear Blast Near Pinedale,” Casper Star Tribune,
February 1, 1972, 2. The article refers to the blast in the past tense: “The
blast was expected to result...” Perhaps the author(s) had a vision that
it would never actually occur.

24
Each device would have been
approximately five times as powerful as the World War II atomic bombs. “AEC
Says Plans for ‘Wagon Wheel’ OK,” Casper Star Tribune, April 1, 1972,
11.

33Frank, “‘Only way to get it
out,’” Casper Star Tribune, May 9, 1972, 9. In 1972 Owen Frank was the
State Editor for the Casper Star Tribune, but he does not specify what
position he held in the late 1950s, except that he refers to himself as “this
writer.” In addition there is no evidence as to what position the oil
field engineer held and with what company.

35
Frank, “‘Only way to get it out,’” Casper Star Tribune, May 9, 1972,
9. Ironically, while “Gasbuggy” project encouraged El Paso, a University of
Colorado study of the second nuclear detonation, “Rulison,” decided it was an
economic failure. The project produced $1.4 million in natural gas, but cost
$11 million. “Rio Blanco Opposed,” High Country News, March 16, 1973,
11.

51
Dr. Dixy Lee Ray became chairman of the AEC shortly before the WWIC went to
Washington.

52
Kreith, The Nuclear Impact, 168. The authors cite both the Rocky
Mountain News, May 12, 1973, and the Denver Post, May 22, 1973.
Additionally, the Casper Star Tribune appears not to have quoted Ray
about Wagon Wheel during May 1973..

66 Birr, “Help on Wagon Wheel,” (letter to the
editor), High Country News, March 31, 1972, 15.

67
“Little Support for Nuclear Project at Pinedale,” Casper Star Tribune,
March 23, 1972, 1. Selection of the chairs was noted in “Bousman to be on
‘Today Show’,” Casper Star Tribune, February 6, 1973.

72
The Associated Students of the University of Wyoming (ASUW) passed a
resolution stating: “the AEC has not proved conclusively that radiation levels
following the test would be safe, and alleged an AEC environmental impact
study conducted on the project was biased and partial.” See “Students would
delay gas blast,” Casper Star Tribune, May 18, 1972, 18.

96 “AEC budget has no test funds,” Casper Star
Tribune, Jan. 31, 1973, 11; “Nixon budget delays Wagon Wheel plans,”
Casper Star Tribune, February 3, 1973, 7. The second article referred to
$2.7 million that had been impounded from Plowshare in fiscal year 1973.
Impoundment is a procedure where the President directs that funds appropriated
by Congress not be spent. Such actions are for savings, not program
elimination.

Adam Lederer, a doctoral student at Indiana
University, earned his M.A. from the University of Wyoming. This article first
appeared in Annals of Wyoming (Summer 1998). It is adapted from Lederer’s
master’s thesis, Using Public Policy Models to Evaluate Nuclear Stimulation
Projects: Wagon Wheel in Wyoming. (University of Wyoming, April 1998).
The author wishes to thank the members of the Wagon Wheel Information
Committee for providing him with information for this article.